


often i am upset (that i cannot fall in love)

by AwesomeBooknerd



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: Aromantic, Aromantic Character, Asexual Aromantic Makoto Naegi, Asexual Character, Gen, Naegi Makoto-centric, all characters except Makoto are just referenced sorry y’all, and Completely just projection, feels weird tagging those?? but i want y’all to know Exactly what ur getting into & that’s it!, i had to make that tag myself?? y’all!!! smh my head, idk what else to tag i feel like there should be something, oh uh i use their first names so heads up ig??, this is?? largely just about being aro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:54:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23695753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwesomeBooknerd/pseuds/AwesomeBooknerd
Summary: Makoto Naegi has never been in love. He’s never even had a crush! And that’s just fine with him.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 47





	often i am upset (that i cannot fall in love)

**Author's Note:**

> Uh,,, this is rly rly rly self-indulgent but y’all have 2 see it 2 so!! Hehe
> 
> If I’m being honest I do hc Makoto as bi but also he’s my Assigned Projection Character & I’m acearo so sometimes I do b projecting that onto him,,, this focuses more on the aromantic part of that?? It briefly touches on asexuality but it’s hard 2 write out more on my personal journey w that without feeling weird about v v lowkey sexualizing a minor?? Tho I’m also a minor (& the implication there is NOT that hc’ing a minor as ace is sexualizing them I Am Sick Of That Bs)
> 
> And w that longwinded note, here we go!!

Makoto knows, with the certainty of someone who’d grown up watching Disney films, that when he looks at Sayaka, or Kyoko, or, hell, Byakuya, he should feel _something_. He should be blushing around Sayaka for some reason other than her teasing, stammering around Kyoko because he was nervous about more than just whether she thought he was smart enough to be her friend, trying to win Byakuya’s approval as more than just a show of friendship. But, oddly enough he didn’t. Sure, he _loved_ them, he loved all his friends, to an extreme degree even! But that was all there was to it. Makoto Naegi wasn’t in love, and never had been.

He’s honestly kind of embarrassed to even think about the one time he had a crush(?). It was as far back as third grade, and there was this one girl in his class who was an even bigger history nerd than he was. He’d come home _in actual tears_ one day because she’d correctly answered more questions than he did. From that point on, Makoto decided he was in love. And proceeded to maintain that stance for three whole years. Thankfully he never acted upon it beyond the whispered confessions that always float around lunch rooms in younger school buildings, but he couldn’t help but think that was… kind of pathetic of him.

But aside from that strange interlude, Makoto has never actually experienced a crush. At first he figured that was just because his classmates weren’t appealing- he just hadn’t met the right person! But then he kept meeting new people, and he didn’t think they were romantically interesting at all, and his classmates would have celebrity crushes- celebrities! The people who were supposed to be perfect and unattainable! What better choice for a crush?- but Makoto was even more hopeless when it came to that. After all, he didn’t even know them in person, and so many of them were way older than him, and that just seemed… weird.

So celebrities were out, and his classmates were out, so what did that leave? He had a brief (but incredibly nerdy) phase where he thought he was just attracted to fictional characters (and that was just terrible to look back on. Yeesh. He actually said that out loud to other people, huh.), but he outgrew that pretty fast too. So where did he go from there?

Online, it turns out. Makoto didn’t actually _plan_ on figuring out this weird romance thing through the internet, but as he got more and more involved in general online hullabaloo in junior high, he realized more and more of his experiences were _not_ actually universal. Who’d have guessed? He’d see plenty of posts about people wanting significant others (and don’t even get him started about the sex stuff, especially coming from his classmates- super valid for other people, but Makoto quickly figured out that just… wasn’t his thing. At all.), but he just couldn’t relate. He’d try to imagine himself with someone in the future, doing all that cute, lovey dovey stuff, and he just felt weirdly uncomfortable. Kissing definitely sounded gross, and hand-holding was nice but he could do that with friends just fine! Since he’d never really had that experience of romantic feelings for someone else, he couldn’t imagine how that would change it in any way.

So. He was minding his business, having minor crises over not wanting a significant other, existing on the internet, and he stumbled across blogs about being aromantic. And _holy shit_. It was like a puzzle piece slid into place. _It wasn’t that he wasn’t around the right people, he just didn’t want it at all. And he wasn’t the only one._

Makoto had, until then, figured he was just… defective in some way. He had pretty much given up on the ‘not the right people’ theory after a few years (he had made it almost all the way through junior high school, how many more people would he need to meet to just have _one single crush_ ), so he had settled on it being a him problem, but he didn’t think it was an actual thing! And now he had a label- scratch that, two! Asexual and aromantic. He could just… not want those experiences ever, and there would still be other people like him.

By the time he got to high school, Makoto figured he’d be pretty comfortable with his chosen labels- and, for the most part, he was. But there was still always this nagging in the back of his mind (and the nastier but not too hard to find parts of the internet) that _he should feel something for_ someone or _he’s too young to actually know if he wants this, he’ll grow out of it, it’s just a phase, it’s just hormones_ , and as much as he’d like to say that voice didn’t bother him, it did! He was honestly terrified that he’d grow up and figure out that he _didn’t_ really mean all of this, that this identity he’d become so proud of and so proud about finding would all be some weird product of hormones and adolescence. But he truly didn’t think so. He simply couldn’t see himself changing in this aspect at all.

Makoto did still feel some kind of pull to people sometimes- he wondered if that was what romantic attraction was like (and it added to his worries all the more-), but he could never imagine himself in a relationship with them. Unless you count friendship, because that’s what the pull seemed to be all about. Sometimes he’d look at a classmate, or one of the super cool upperclassmen, or even the amazing kids in the class below him, and he’d almost ache with it, the feeling of _I want so, so, so badly to be friends with you._ Makoto just thought they were so incredible, how could he not want to befriend them? He couldn’t contain himself just thinking about all the wonderful friends he already had here, his heart felt like bursting with it.

In the quiet moments he got to share with those friends, sometimes that critical voice would nag louder, insist that _if he liked holding Taka’s hand that much, why wouldn’t he want to date him?_ , _if he was so willing to trade stories with Sakura, why wouldn’t they go out?_ , _if he liked just sitting quietly with Mukuro or hearing about Mondo’s gang, was that really so different from having a crush on them?_ but you know what he’s decided? Fuck that voice! It’s his identity, and he knows what’s going on. He _doesn’t_ have to feel anything more than burning friendship when he looks at Kyoko or Sayaka or Byakuya, and that’s no less valid than feeling something else for any of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope y’all enjoyed, I wrote this at 1AM in 30 minutes out of pure adrenaline & projection! 
> 
> At some point I hope 2 finish/publish the antithesis of this,,, my ridiculously long & mildly sad fic abt Makoto having crushes on Literally All Of His Classmates bc he would,,, but 4 now y’all get this!!


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